Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Saying Goodbye to 2013, A Warning for 2014

Southern Wisconsin has some very secluded spots. For instance, in a patch of woods tucked away between rolling hills, off a gravel road that winds for miles sits a pole barn. It doesn't look special from the outside. It looks like any other barn the many farmers around here use.

As with most barns the floors were concrete. On one side of the building sat a van. A creepy van. A van you don't ever want to see outside your home.

On the opposite side of the van sat a man. He was naked but for a black hood over his head. The cold steel chair he was duct taped to was bolted into the floor.

I walked slowly around the man, the heels of my boots clicking on the cold floor and echoing in the barn. Outside the wind blew snow against the side of the barn with a slight ticking sound.

I stopped in front of the man and looked down upon him. He was motionless.

I pulled the hood off his head with a quick snap and took the gag out of his mouth. A look of fear moved across his face.

"You!"

"Hello, 2013. Going somewhere?"

"Hey, look," he said. "I know you haven't had the best time these past few months."

"Oh?" I slowly walked around him. "These past few months, huh?" I walked over to a table I had set up with the night's entertainment. "So, it was just these past few months that have been rough, in your opinion?"

"Well," he started. "I know this whole year wasn't easy. I mean it started pretty hard for you."

"That's one way of putting it, I suppose."

"But," he began with a stammer. "We had some good times, too. Right?"

"Name one."

"What?"

"Name a good time I had." The wind had picked up outside and more snow blasted against the outside. It was chilly inside the barn, but the firebox was stoked and hot. Inside logs popped and snapped.

"Well," he said slowly. "There was the time you went to see your family."

"And?"

"Umm...you saw your family a couple of times."

"Like when my mom had cancer?"

"Yeah!" But then he realized his error and stopped.

"Oh no," I said while picking up a sledge hammer with a short handle. "Let's continue."

"I'm sorry!"

"But there is so much more to talk about, 2013. We haven't even gone over the various women."

"Please," he said. "Let me go. I'm almost done. I'm almost out of here."

"You must be held accountable." I didn't yell. Yelling is such a waste of energy.

"That one wasn't my fault, Ted. That started in 2012!"

"I know. I don't hold you accountable for her. And she's been dealt with."

"Oh God!"

"He's not here today, 2013. It's just you and I."

"I'm gonna be sick." He began to gag a bit. "Please let me go!"

"Why should I do that? You really brought some bad things. Unrequited love is one thing, but to have my face rubbed in it and laughed at? No, I'm afraid we can't have that."

"But I'm not over yet--"

I brought the sledge hammer down on his foot with all my strength. He screamed as the bones crushed and burst through his skin.

"I'm sorry, 2013. You had your chance."

"But why?" He was sobbing. "I only have a few hours left."

"I'm going to take you apart, now. Bone by bone, tendon by tendon, skin from skin. I'm going to do to you what you did to me."

"Please forgive me," he gasped.

"I don't know what that means or why I would want to."

I started with the straight razor. Small cuts here and there, then deeper and deeper. I cut off his nose, ears and lips.

The hot pokers in the fire box glowed until I put them in his eye sockets.

"Can you still hear me, 2013?"

He grunted. There were just a few minutes of life left in him.

"Do you know what disappoints me the most about you? It's the promise. It wasn't having my face rubbed in that which I'll never have, or having a pretty woman ignore me, or getting a rejection letter. It's that for a moment there midway through, I actually thought you were going to be better. And in a matter of a few weeks it was all stripped away. You disappoint me, 2013."

The chainsaw was a nice toy. Legs and arms, already mangled and skinned, flew off his torso. The intestine was fun, too. I loved how the warm blood sprayed on my face.

2013 Expired without me noticing. I was taken with the ecstasy of it all and lost my track of time. As I turned off the chainsaw and went to put it on the table, I noticed 2014 standing in the doorway. His eyes were wide with terror and he had dropped to his knees with his hands over his mouth in an attempt to hold in the scream.

"Oh God," he said as he looked over the shredded and torn bits of 2013.

"He's not here today." When he looked over at me, covered in blood and gore, he tried to talk but couldn't. I stared at him deeply, making sure our eyes were locked.

"I'm expecting better things from you, 2014. And you really don't want to disappoint me, now do you?"